Treasury: March Added $192 Billion to 2009 Budget Deficit

Treasury said this afternoon that the budget deficit increased by a record $192.3 billion in March, pushed higher by the recession and the cost of the financial bailout, and is nearing $1 trillion for 2009, halfway through the fiscal year.

Economists were predicting that March would add only(!) $150 billion to the federal deficit. As it was, it beat the March 2008 deficit by four-fold.

The deficit stands at $956.8 billion for the first six months of the budget year, also a record for that period. If spending continues at the same rate, the deficit will exceed the Obama administration's projected deficit for the entire year of $1.75 trillion.

That deficit would nearly quadruple the previous annual record of $454.8 billion set last year.

The deficit is being stretched by the $300 billion in government bailout money handed out so far to the likes of AIG, Citigroup, GM and Chrysler.

-- Frank Ahrens
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